01 02 03 Scattered Confetti: And I said "yes". [Our Engagement Story] 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

And I said "yes". [Our Engagement Story]

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This is one of the photos S. gave me as a present yesterday when we celebrated one year of being engaged. I had no clue that he had hired two secret photographers who captured the whole thing. I can't stop looking at all of them, they are so special!!

Okay, so this is probably going to be a quite lengthy post, so maybe you grab a cup of coffee/tea and make yourself comfortable :)

Last year in March we, once again, visited our favourite city in the whole world: Barcelona. It was supposed to be the last "real" vacation before I was going to start my teacher training and we could only go on vacation during the school holidays.

On all our trips I was/am always the one who was/is planning everything, looking for things we can do, finding out routes etc. I wanted that to change. Because S. didn't feel comfortable with doing this for the whole trip, we agreed on one day - a whole day that he would plan from waking up until going to bed.

I think we arrived in Barcelona on Monday, the 24th of March, and "his" day was going to be Thursday the 27th. He was very specific with that and said we couldn't do it on another date. I didn't make much of it because I just thought to myself that he might have made some reservations for a restaurant or something.

When the day came, I already woke up quite excited for the day ahead. To be honest, not even a week before I had a dinner date with one of my girlfriends and told her that I think that S. might propose on that day. But I always told myself that he probably wouldn't, so I wouldn't be too disappointed if it didn't happen.
On the other hand, there were so many arguments that just spoke for the proposal - we had been together for a bit more than four years, we already lived together and for both of us it was just clear that one day we would get married. Almost from the beginning we talked about things that came after a wedding. And, I knew that S. would want to make the proposal perfect and I just couldn't imagine any better place for it than our city.

Anyways, when we left our hotel room, we went for breakfast. I already suspected where he would take me and I was right. Of our favourite coffee places in Barcelona (the café Cosmo) there existed a sister coffee shop, called "Cometa" and we wanted to go there from the moment we found out about it.


What can I say? It was the perfect place to have breakfast on this day! The café is small, but so full of character! It's not in a very touristy part of the city, so there are mostly locals in there. And the food is just delicious! We both had a Cometa breakfast, a carrot cake and a hot chocolate. His was also sprinkled with those tiny marshmallows. It was perfect.


After we had finished stuffing our faces with the most delicious breakfast, we ventured through the city, across the Ramblas into the Gothic Quarter and further on into the Born district. S. said we had some more time until we had an appointment somewhere (I had no clue what it could be), so we just strolled through the pretty alleys in the Born district and did some windowshopping until we had to move on.


When we arrived at our destination I still had no clue. We went into a really narrow alley only to turn left into an even narrower, tinier alley. At the end of it there was a door that looked like it leaded into the basement of an old house, and when the door opned it just looked like heaven!
It was a massage place - but this doesn't do it justice. It was more than that. It's an oasis of relaxation, and I'm not exaggerating. I mean, I expected to get a massage there (what else would we do there?!) but boy was I in for a treat!
It was a 90 minutes massage - the first 30 minutes you can choose if you want a feet or head/shoulders massage and then 60 minutes full body massage. Kinnis, the guy who runs this little heaven on earth, was massaging me and it was without a doubt the best massage I have ever had! The whole experience was just so relaxing, soothing, revitalising! You could choose the oils you would like for the treatment and for the whole time there were some nice calming tunes playing in the background.


Source
When S. and I came out we both agreed that we had never felt this relaxed in our whole life! In fact we enjoyed it so much that we booked a second appointment for the day before we left :D

So - if you should ever go to Barcelona, I'm absolutely serious, you MUST go to Kiromasaje. You will not regret it, and for the price of 58€ per person for a 90 minutes massage it is a real bargain!!

After this deeply relaxing experience, I was pretty sure the day couldn't get any better. We then grabbed something to eat before we continued to venture on.
We had to go by Metro but S. didn't want to tell me where we were going. I suspected that it would be the Parc del Labirint because, just like with the café Cometa, this was a place we had always planned to visit on our Barcelona trips but just never seemed to make it. Besides, we were taking a line and a destination that I couldn't connect with any of our typical favourite spots or any of the "big" sights in Barcelona - and I usually know my way around this city quite well.

To be honest, the nearer we came to the park and the more time of the day had already passed, the surer I was that S. was going to propose. (But still with this voice in my mind that kept telling me not to expect too much and not be sad if it doesn't happen)

First we walked around this beautiful park a while and just enjoyed the scenery, especially because we were almost alone which is quite rare in a city as big as Barcelona. The Parc del Labirint is a bit of an insider tip if you want to flee the masses of tourists!


So after walking around for a while, we stopped at the top of the stairs that lead downstairs to the labyrinth out of hedges. We stood there for a while talking and I noticed that S. became a little nervous and more serious (not really the right word, but it'll do). The voice in my head, that tried to convince me before that it might not happen on this day, was now just saying "he's doing it, he's doing it!!" :D
Well, after he told me lots of nice and heartwarming things (that I'm not going to repeat here word for word), he dropped down to one knee, held a ring up and asked me if I wanted to be his wife.

Up until this day I always asked myself what my reaction in this moment would be like. Would I be crying? Would there be the typical "hands to mouth - oh my god I can't believe it"-gesture and sobbing? Actually, I was just smiling and gleaming with happiness and, without any hesitation, said "Yes, of course I want to!!"

Photos taken by David del Val

You could see that S. was a tiny bit relieved ;) He then put the most beautiful and perfect ring on my finger. It's one of a kind. He had asked a friend who is a goldsmith to make this ring. He had quite a clear view of what he wanted the ring to be like, so the design was all done by S. And he couldn't have done a better job!
I love that no-one else in the whole wide world has the same ring as me and that S. had put so much thought into this (not entirely unimportant) detail of the proposal! Still makes me happy everytime I look at it!

But see for yourself:


After we then ventured back into the city, S. told me that we would go out for dinner that night. I was determined to get a new dress to wear that evening because I felt that nothing I had taken with me was appropriate for this occasion. So we went to Zara, where I was looking for a specific dress that I had seen online before and pinned to my fashion board.
I couldn't find it anywhere and was ready to give up. Especially because I don't really like to ask shop assistants for something if I can't find it (not because of the language, I don't like it in general), so I always just assume that it must be out of stock. But S. being the perfect now-fiancé that he is, went to one of the shop assistants with a photo (he doesn't speak Spanish) to ask for the dress.
It didn't take two minutes and three women were searching for this dress, for me. It was a bit unreal because normally this store is so full of people that the shop assistants try to avoid situations like this

About five minutes later they brought the dress and it fit perfectly! On the way to the cash desk I mentioned to S. that now I still need the perfect nailpolish to go with this dress, I had a dark grey, anthracite coloured one in mind. And honestly, I expected him to roll his eyes, flip me the bird or tell me I'm crazy, but all he said was:  "Yes, maybe something in anthracite!"

In that moment all I could think was "This is the perfect guy!" Not because of some stupid nailpolish, but because he gets me. Because he puts up with me and because we just fit together oh so well.

When we had gotten the perfect nailpolish, we went back to the hotel to take a shower and get all dressed up for our dinner in an absolutely fabulous vegeterian restaurant called Teresa Carles. The food was perfect, we were both gleaming with happiness and it was just the best place on earth to celebrate this new chapter of our lives!
Fun fact: I didn't wear the dress I had just bought after all that trouble in the store. But S. didn't mind :)

When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was to look at my hand and see if the ring was still there :D


So, there you go. Quite a lengthy text (and I even skipped some if the details that I would normally tell everyone who asked about our engagement story :D )
I don't think that a proposal has to be this elaborate and "big". But for us, this was just perfect. (I'm quite sure almost every bride-to-be says that about her engagement but oh well ;) )

If you've made it until here, you deserve an award!! ;)

P.S.: I think I will share some more of the engagement photos in the next few days, I just love them too much not to share ;)

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